Procedural Tech Trees: Limit Theory Dev Diary

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To recap: Josh Parnell’s lovely looking Limit Theory is a space game in the style of Elite: trade, shoot, live, SPACE! He releases a monthly dev diary charting his progress, and each video has thrilled me. This, the tenth in the series, is probably the most exciting one yet. To put that in context: previous videos have shown how the game will procedurally generate the universe in a Dwarf Fortress story-building fashion, and a morning’s worth of work that generated planet surfaces. This video talks about the tech tree and the modding UI, and you just have to watch it. He’s procedurally generated tech-trees, and the modding interface is one of the most beautiful things I’ve ever seen.
Researching the tech tree is as much about exploration as it is about tech: the nodes on the tree branch off as you keep digging down into their effects, enabling you to create incredibly specialised equipment. The game will keep building on the nodes procedurally. As long as you have the research capabilities, you’ll be able to keep adding to the tech tree.

Then he drops the modding interface bombshell: Limit Theory was initially not supposed to be moddable, but Josh has worked on a visual UI that’ll allow players to expose the live data and modify it. Everything is represented in organic menus that swirl around like electronic ferns. The shape of the data should help players determine what bit of data they’re looking at, and as you click on each node you’ll drop deeper and deeper into the game’s code. It’s incredible.

Yes, the gameplay is closer to the X series, but you’re wrong that it’s the same type of game as Elite, the gameplay controls, avionics and setting are very different, especially since it’s focus isn’t from a first person perspective, then there is also walk around stuff that will be in Elite.

Elite: Dangerous will be closer to Star Citizen, but even that is stretching it, since it’s also in a different setting, not all kinds of space are equal.

There are differences, yes, but they are still very similar games. Outrun 2006 and Elite are very different games. I don’t see what your problem is with two broadly similar space games being compared with each other. But I agree it’s not a competition. We space fans have waited aeons for this type of service from the industry and we owe it to ourselves not to splinter in silly rivalries when we can have ALL the fun.

I’m genuinely worried that Josh is going insane. He works on this game long hours every day (read the dev logs). The man deserves a medal, he’s making the space game that I want to play. I just hope he doesn’t lose all his marbles somewhere in that beautiful real time object viewer.

Wow, that data UI is just beautiful! Love the gentle animation in it too.

Every video I see from Josh just makes me smile too, as he is such a programmer. Like the multiple visualisation layouts, that just smacks of a programmer having a little ‘time off’ by doing something else pretty when some other code is being a bit of a git!

(Just to make sure no one misreads me: having a programmer’s brain is awesome, as long as it’s your own)

Very happy I backed this. The updates have been fun, and the progress is amazing. This latest one blew my mind though; not only is the UI incredible, but it allowed him to modify things in the engine, in real time, and see the immediate effect.

Josh is awesome, and I backed this basically to allow this cool kid (yes, I’m old enough to be his father) to follow his dream.

“I don’t even see the code. All I see is blonde, brunette, redhead, spaceship.”

* I’m not a fan of the new shader effect for this game. While it’s a cool effect, it makes the gameworld look like there’s an atmosphere, and for a space-based game that just looks unrealistic. Glad there will be an option to turn it off.
* The data file visualizer is beautiful. I’m unconvinced that it will be an efficient interface, but it looks like a Hollywood version of a sci-fi computer interface. Better, even. The animations and fractal patterns really are hypnotic. If Josh is reading this, I would suggest a click-and-drag behavior for the nodes that changes the numeric values as you drag up and down, instead of having to click and then type values with the keyboard. That should make changing values a bit more expedient.
* I just saw Josh’s portfolio site. I assumed he was an established programmer with several big titles under his belt, but he’s still getting his degree! His work on this game makes that extremely impressive.
* I really regret I didn’t know about this game when it was on KS.